


this is not a victory march

by magisterequitum



Category: Marvel (Movies), Thor (2011)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-23
Updated: 2011-09-23
Packaged: 2017-10-23 23:57:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/pseuds/magisterequitum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once, when they had been small and young and the roots on the Tree had been still small, there had been two boys and a girl. And now the knife is a heavy weight at her hip, strange and sure and missing from its rightful owner. pre-movie and then throughout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is not a victory march

The throwing knife is warm in her palm from where she has touched it, held it, kept it close to her side. It stays on her hip, a presence that she feels every time she walks like a constant reminder of what is wrong and what is missing. She knows this knife. Knows its secrets and how it is slightly heavier on the curved side.

She knows too its owner. Refuses, or perhaps can’t, to believe that she does not, that then the years, and decades, and centuries, and all that time had been false.

Sif believes, so surely, so strong, so deep in that spot behind her rib cage that beats unevenly with loneliness.

She runs a thumb over the jagged end. The pain is delayed, followed by a swelling bead of red. It is nothing, the piercing. The healing rooms have seen her for far, far worse.

Still, she shudders and welcomes it.

 

 

\--

 

 

Once, when they had been small and young and the roots on the Tree had been still small, there had been two boys and a girl. Two princes and a girl who had snuck into the grounds of the palace on a dare given by herself, attracted by the clang and call of steel.

One golden, who has a broad smile and an easy manner already, but it is the dark haired boy who invites her to join in with their play. Looking back, it is not difficult to see that it had been because he’d been pleased to find someone else for his brother to rough up. Still that memory burns bright in her mind’s eye.

They grow older, and three become six, and it becomes very clear that Sif is supposed to love Thor.

Thor is still golden, Thor is the first born, and there is no secret that the first born will inherit. She is supposed to love him and be queen to his king. There are whispers of it that follow them.

She loves Thor. He is her friend and has been for so many years, but she is not in love with him. She loves him as her brother, as her leader, as her prince and future king.

It is not golden hair and blue eyes and an easy smile that she is in love with. No, it is the second born, the second son, the dark haired prince with the slyness about his long face that she finds herself entwining her feelings with.

 

 

\--

 

 

Anger runs hot beneath her skin as she slashes at the undergrowth around the small glade in the gardens. Then, she realizes that it would be in poor taste to destroy the royal palace’s well kept gardens. She sits, feeling the coolness of the grass beneath the leather on her legs. The girl in the water pool’s reflection has hair the color of the sun that warms her back.

The locks are bright and Sif hates them. They inspire words of how beautiful a lady she will become, and how her mother must be so proud to have such a daughter, and won’t she just be the envy of all to come when she is no longer just a maiden.

Sif has no desire to become a lady. She will be one of the fiercest warriors of Asgard, no matter what is between her legs. The role her mother would have her play chafes at her, rubs her raw like nothing else.

There comes the whisk-whisk of familiar metal from nearby, and the realization that she is not alone hits her. She stands, and sees the familiar dark head, thinks it would be nice to have that color too, so different from what is the norm.

Her friend turns quickly at her approach, his arms falling to his sides. Loki has grown taller than her now, thinness like the skinny trees that line the garden entrance. He inclines his head, the rough purple collar of his tunic brushing his chin. “Lady Sif, I am sure Thor would be happy to see you.”

He has grown this way too, refined and polite in his words, though the intrigue and intelligence still shine in his knowing eyes. She likes it none, in truth because she does not know the feeling that it gives her.

She eyes the throwing knife in his hand, his preferred weapon that she had watched him select, him saying he had wanted to distinguish himself in his own way. “It is not Thor I want,” she says, and then motions with her fingers. “May I borrow your knife?”

He relinquishes it, hilt first, curiosity in his gaze. He follows her, footsteps soft, a shadow at her back in the harsh sunlight of the day, as she resumes her previous spot.

The idea has seized her, and she will not falter to let her mind change. She seizes the knife in one hand and her hair in the other, gathers the long strands together and bunches them in her fist. The knots prevent her from making a clean cut of it, but she hacks and saws away. From the water, amongst the floating gold locks of her once hair, she smiles at the image and looks up to see Loki’s wide eyed gaze.

She turns, extends the throwing knife to him. “Will you help me be rid of the rest?”

Loki takes it, kneels behind her. “All of it?”

Sif nods. “All.”

His fingers work quickly, as if he too is afraid she might change her mind. The sensation is pleasant, and when he is done the breeze feels cool on her naked scalp.

“Your mother will not be pleased,” he murmurs behind her.

Her face splits into an even wider grin. “No, she will not,” she closes her hand over his. “Why should you get to do all the tricks?”

“I suppose I can share this once.’

“Yes, well, thank you.”

 

 

\--

 

 

Sif stands in the back of the great hall of the palace, horrified and frozen in place. Her mother’s hand is a clamp on her wrist, a vice keeping her pinned and tethered. Her skin scrawls at her friend’s screams from the front of the hall, growing fainter and fainter as more of his lips are sewn shut.

She wants to run, wants to fight, wants to smash and ruin them all till they understand that she had asked him to help, that it was her that picked up the knife. Her mother had not believed her, had instead believed in the reputation of the young God of Mischief, of lies and trickery, thinking that he had been the one to talk her into this.

Later, when the punishment has been dealt, the mocking laughs of the court still in her ears, she slips down the halls and into his room.

He is a wounded animal in front of her. But no, that is not right, for despite his mouth sewn shut, there is anger and fire that burns in his green gaze. The hair around her shoulders, so full and black, promised by him in appeasement, feels heavy and cloistering.

“Loki.”

His name slips from her lips, though she knows not else what to say. What can she say. His talent has always been words, not hers. He had taken this for her and now she stands before him.

Sif looks around his room, gaze falling on the knife from before. He keeps them on a side table, near a set of shelves that hold the many books he is so fond of. They had decreed he could not remove them himself, but they had said nothing about someone else.

She picks up the knife, and kneels beside him on the floor. She says his name again, and then whispers, “Please.”

Loki turns towards her, shame and rage burning still in his eyes. He stays still though when she reaches out with unsteady fingers and cups the side of his face.

Her hand fans out, thumb on his pulse that beats slower than she would have expected. She swallows hard and brings the knife to the jagged thread that has been woven through his skin. It disgusts her. She tries to work as quick as she can, but even then the task forces her to be slow; she will not hurt him further. Blood wells up, spills over and onto her fingers, runs down the pale expanse of his chin and neck.

When she is done, the cord pulled through and cast to the floor away from them, Loki takes in a shuddering breath. It is a wet noise, blood in his mouth and he spits it away.

Sif presses her fingers to his lips where certainly there will be scars. The words of apology never rise in her mouth. They die in her throat because he will not want them and they are not enough here.

He catches her wrist, long fingers closing around the bones, and holds her in place, green eyes ablaze in humiliation she realizes, not the pain of the act.

She remembers that later.

 

 

\--

 

 

To be a shield-maiden of Asgard is to be someone that is never completely understood. She is the Goddess of War, the fiercest lady warrior ever to grace the halls, one of the most fearsome warriors of Asgard, but she is still a lady. Armor and dress, metal and leather and silk, all she wears with ease, comfortable no matter what covers her skin. But to the rest of Asgard, it is an impossible thing to reconcile the two: warrior Sif and the lady Sif.

They sit in the feasting hall. Sconces on the wall cast a golden glow that is echoed and reflected back by the pillars and tiles and the table and plates in front of them. They sit, the six of them, exalted and revell in the praises of those around them for another hard won victory.

Sif sits between Thor and Hogun. Across from her, heavy in gaze, heavy in presence though he goes unaware of everyone else around them, is Loki. None of the others seem to notice that his eyes do not leave her, never stray away for long, eyes that follow the curve and dip of her throat and what he finds so fascinating and compelling there she cannot know. She wants to know though, wants to lean across and ask him what he sees that no one else does.

Her cup is empty. He refills it for her when she reaches for more, and his fingers linger over hers, her wrist, the pulse that beats quicker there. It sets her skin to an itch.

Loki smiles, a quick twist of his lips, and says, “To the Lady Sif.”

Everyone else echoes the toast, but she ignores them to stare openly at Loki. He drinks, the long line of his pale neck moving as his throat works. It is not the first time he has called her ‘Lady Sif’; many times in their adolescence, but now there is a warmth and an intent behind his title for her.

What game he seeks to play tonight she knows not either. Things have changed between them in the last decades. They are older, and no longer is she a maiden with newly black hair, and no longer is he the skinny boy who she used to chase around the fighting ring when he would not spar with her and used careful words and taunts to escape instead.

No, they are older and she will not have this anymore. They have danced enough around whatever this is, these games and tricks, him stealing the combs she uses to hold her hair back and the ribbons she keeps around her wrists, and she pressing herself close to him when it rains in the pretense to stay warm but really to see him come undone.

Sif follows him when he leaves the hall. The rest are drunk, and their voices carry out to chase their retreating backs.

Loki says nothing, slips quietly down the corridors, and only stops when they are alone and removed. His face is neutral, muscles lax, but she knows that means he is only trying too hard.

“You mock me,” she says, her voice loud in the empty hallway.

Green eyes, like the lizards they used to catch as children, always changing and changing, slide over to her. “I assure you I do not, my Lady.”

Sif steps closer, steps right into his space, knowing how much he hates that. His breath is sweet, smelling of his mother’s wine and the honeyed fruit he likes so much. “Why do you call me that?” Her hands twitch and the fingers attached want to reach up to touch the smooth fabric of his tunic.

He is not touching her, rather holding himself stiff and composed. She wants to wreck him, break him apart and then put him back together as she sees fit.

“What else would I call you?”

She does bring her hands up then, digs her fingers into the muscles of his chest underneath that smooth fabric. She will not have these games, these tricks, these lies. She will have the truth even if she must pull it out of him. “That is not an answer.”

Loki smiles at that, again that quick twist of his lips. “Then perhaps you should ask a better question.”

Her hips press into his now, to keep him anchored here; she knows he can flit off into the shadows should he choose to at any moment. She thinks, and then, “Why do you call me that? What am I to you?”

A dangerous question she has asked, and an even more dangerous array of answers he can give her.

He shudders, eyes hooded as his lashes drop down. He ghosts his hands along her sides. “You are the Lady Sif, warrior and lady of Asgard.”

The same, he sees her as the same, not two, but one together.

Sif surges forward, closes that last bit of space between them, fits her body tight to his in that empty corridor, and mashes her lips to his. Her teeth click against his with her forcefulness, and she kisses him like she goes into war. She gives him no space to pull back, pushes him against the wall, and slips her tongue into his mouth.

He unfolds, and then he is clutching her tight too, hands grabbing at her waist, sliding down to her ass, palming her beneath the heavy silk of her dress.

It is easy from there, or rather it is quick, their first coupling. It happens there in the hallway, pressed into the shadows where the flames do not reach completely. Would that someone had come across them, they would have seen Sif with her thigh between his long legs and Loki with his hands beneath the dress that he’s rucked up around her waist.

No one does come along, and the cries they swallow in one another’s mouths are for them only.

 

 

\--

 

 

Loki’s rooms are on the eastern side of the palace, facing the water beyond. As it is, as they lie on the bed, lazy after their actions of the night, the open balcony doors allow the breeze from the approaching storm to drift over their bodies.

Sif turns on her side, awake, and looks at the sleeping form of her lover; she smiles at the purple mark she’d put on his collarbone hours earlier. They have done this for so long now, but still it amazes her that he sleeps beside her so easily. The trust is heavy there, makes her throat stick. He is troubled lately, she can feel it just as she can feel the coming rain. She wants to wake him and make him talk, make him use that tongue of his.

Instead, she slips from the bed, the rustling of the sheets the only sound of her retreat, and redresses. If she goes now, she may have time to practice her forms before the storm’s arrival. It is when she is leaving that she sees it. Sitting outside of the leather holster, away from the others, the knife is innocent looking.

Sif runs a finger along its curved hilt. She glances backwards to his sleeping form, and then tucks the throwing knife down into her boot. If he is complacent enough to sleep while she is awake, then he is to blame for her theft.

 

 

\--

 

 

Jotunheim is cold.

Colder than the winters that come to Asgard that sees them sleeping under heavy furs. This is worse. Her breath is white in front of her face, like the smoke the fills the airs of the halls of the old warriors who talk and talk. She breathes out, feels the ache in her lungs beneath where her armor and leather presses tight to her. Heimdall had been right. None of them had dressed for this.

And none of them had been prepared for this.

Her weapon moves as if it is an extension of her arm, so skilled, so practiced is she at fighting. She is not the Goddess of War for naught. Her friends move around her, and they are a unit of six that slips and slides and adjusts. She turns and can see Fandral let out a warning to not let them touch them, can see Thor and his glee, can see Hogun and Volstagg moving backwards, and can see the familiar arch and twist that heralds the throwing of the knives Loki keeps hidden on himself.

There is dread that washes over her, drowning out the love of battle that usually sits in her chest.

Later, when she has cause to think on it, it worries her.

\--

The guard asks for their weapons.

This is not unusual, and so they hand them over. The others give theirs first, and Sif is last. She sets them down with care, the glaive, her long knife, and finally the throwing knife with a cheerful smile to the guard.

It is the throwing knife she thinks of as she stands before her lover in the throne room. No, the god in front of her is King, not the man she has spent centuries with. She cannot read the expression in Loki’s shuttered face and that distresses her more than anything. More than ever she wishes that she could break him apart, pull him apart into tiny pieces and build him back up again; tell him that he is wrong, that the envy and jealousy are false, they are his friends, they are his closest companions, when did he become so troubled to not see this.

He speaks to her when he says that he cannot bring Thor back, more like will not, and her look of displeasure promises him that this is not over.

 

 

\--

 

 

“What is wrong?”

She speaks to his back. He stands away from her, back facing her. He has not acknowledged her since she barged her way into his rooms past the guards.

She steps closer, touches his back. The words are in her mouth, accusations and statements of what she knows to be true. She wants them from him though. “Will you not speak?”

Loki turns at that, strong fingers grabbing her wrists, mouth hard on hers. The metal of his helmet presses into her forehead and cheeks. He is not stronger than her, not in physical force, and she could break away if she wanted to.

Instead, she lets him pull her to him, pull her down to the floor of the throne room, bites at his lips. Her hands dig deep into his shoulders, and then to the curved horns of the helmet as he settles between her legs and draws her leggings down her thighs.

He wants his name from her, wants to hear her voice ringing off the marble and high ceilings, needs to hear it, she thinks. His shoulders tremble beneath the heavy fall of his cloak, and would that he just tell her. Instead, he spreads her thighs and ducks down to lick into her, adds a finger and then another, nips at her clit, and brings her off quickly.

She gives him what he wants as her orgasm hits her. Tilts her head back, and cries out, “Loki.”

Loki stays for a minute, strokes sticky fingers on her thighs, and stares at her with unreadable eyes. He has closed off, locked himself away to somewhere she cannot follow.

Would that he had said something. It would have been easier. Now, she has Heimdall to get past. Thor can help her reach him, she has to believe.

 

 

\--

 

 

Eir has released her, sent her on her way with a few muttered words and a cream that will see her bruises from the Destroyer fade quickly. She will wear them with pride until then.

She sees Thor then, and walks towards him. Her greeting dies in her head when she gets close enough to read the expression on his face. Sorrow, grief, a sadness that she has never seen before.

“Where is he?” Somehow, Sif is able to ask.

Thor shakes his head, blue eyes watery and shadowed. “He fell.”

Later, when the Queen touches a hand to her arm, it takes every year of her life to will her face to stay blank.

 

 

\--

 

 

The throwing knife is warm in her palm, and she closes her fingers over it, watches the red of her prick spread across the silver.

Sif believes.

She will hold it till she can return it to its owner.


End file.
